Not THAT bad after 1500' death plunge

It seems that nearly half of the posts to this forum start off with "lost my Phantom" or "Phantom crashed - help!". With 50 successful and uneventful flights since purchasing a P3A last Jan., I didn't think that was going to happen to me - until it did. Yesterday evening, I sent the Phantom straight up from my house for some photos. At 900', I saw the screen image go wonky, and then watched helplessly as the craft tumbled from the sky into a 600' canyon next to the house (for those who wish to freak about the 900', I'm in the middle of nowhere with no nearby aviation). Climbed down the canyon and was able to locate the craft by it's last dying beeps. Housing and battery shattered, gimbal and camera here & there, Marco Polo ejected & lost (hadn't turned it on, since I was only going straight up). Checked flight logs - all normal until just after fall began, then an endless series of speed & compass errors. As far as what could have caused this, one prop (DJI carbon fiber) was completely missing - possible catastrophic failure? I had just tightened them before take off and had made no sudden or braking maneuvers - just straight up. This was also the first flight after installing the v1.9.60 firmware. DJI Go App showed clear with safe to fly. All I know at this time is that I'm on the fence as far as replacement - it's a pretty fair chunk of cash to risk to what seems to be a litany of minutia just waiting to go wrong.

I learned that you can buy the aircraft alone without a charger or remote for pretty cheap. I think it is like $550 on the DJI site. I would just get a new one and keep that one for parts. That is what I did after a similar crash. IF you think about it these drones are pretty durable! After a fall like that I would expect a lot more damage. Usually my battery pops out in a crash.

It looks like you could repair that one but the cost of parts might exceed a replacement aircraft. I have replaced 2 bodies and it was pretty easy, just took a few hours. I haven't torn apart a camera/gimbal yet but it looks fairly straightforward.

Straight up, especially that high, is really bad for maintaining a signal.

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Not at all. 900 feet is nothing.
Why would you think that? The only thing you would have to do is turn your antenna facing up instead of out if you have a weak signal. Even if you lost signal, the failsafe would kick in and it would just land.
No issues at all.

Another crash with the carbon fiber props... That's it, I'm pulling mine off. Seems like quite a few accidents happen with them and though I haven't had a problem with them, I do pay a lot more attention to them then I do the standard with yellow tips that I have. I've been on the fence about pulling them off for a while but it feels like the right time has come

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Another crash with the carbon fiber props... That's it, I'm pulling mine off. Seems like quite a few accidents happen with them and though I haven't had a problem with them, I do pay a lot more attention to them then I do the standard with yellow tips that I have. I've been on the fence about pulling them off for a while but it feels like the right time has come

I learned that you can buy the aircraft alone without a charger or remote for pretty cheap. I think it is like $550 on the DJI site. I would just get a new one and keep that one for parts. That is what I did after a similar crash. IF you think about it these drones are pretty durable! After a fall like that I would expect a lot more damage. Usually my battery pops out in a crash.

It looks like you could repair that one but the cost of parts might exceed a replacement aircraft. I have replaced 2 bodies and it was pretty easy, just took a few hours. I haven't torn apart a camera/gimbal yet but it looks fairly straightforward.

I learned that you can buy the aircraft alone without a charger or remote for pretty cheap. I think it is like $550 on the DJI site. I would just get a new one and keep that one for parts. That is what I did after a similar crash. IF you think about it these drones are pretty durable! After a fall like that I would expect a lot more damage. Usually my battery pops out in a crash.

It looks like you could repair that one but the cost of parts might exceed a replacement aircraft. I have replaced 2 bodies and it was pretty easy, just took a few hours. I haven't torn apart a camera/gimbal yet but it looks fairly straightforward.

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I just might go that route. Agreed as far as the damage - even though it's banged up beyond reasonable repair, when I heard it hit down in the canyon, I thought for sure that it would be completely shattered.

As far as what could have caused this, one prop (DJI carbon fiber) was completely missing - possible catastrophic failure? I had just tightened them before take off and had made no sudden or braking maneuvers - just straight up.

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Can you post a close up pic of the broken prop at the break or look and see if you can see any metal wire tips sticking out the end? I know that they say carbon fiber but after looking at the clean break, it looks like they ground the fibers to dust. It should look stranded if it really is carbon fiber.

Not at all. 900 feet is nothing.
Why would you think that? The only thing you would have to do is turn your antenna facing up instead of out if you have a weak signal. Even if you lost signal, the failsafe would kick in and it would just land.
No issues at all.

The way it was explained to me is this, the signal comes out of the bottom of the AC in a cone shape but with a blind spot directly below. The higher up it goes the wider the spread of the blind spot. Around 1K is where the blind spot is too wide and the signal is lost.